Experimental studies on the overall efficiency performance of axial piston motor with a laser surface textured valve plate

Experimental studies on the overall efficiency performance of axial piston motor with a laser surface textured valve plate are developed to study the potential use of laser surface texturing in the form of spherical micro-dimples. This study adapts the fiber laser marking machine to machine micro-dimples with different dimensions on the surface of the valve plate for axial piston motor. In addition, these tests of the overall efficiency are given to the axial piston motor fixed to the valve plate with laser micro-dimples in order to find the relationship between the overall efficiency of the axial piston motor and different dimensions of micro-dimples on the surface of the valve plate. The regions of inner dead point and outer dead point of the valve plate are easily erodable because of the pressure pulsation. Therefore, in this study, micro-dimples are machined with different dimensions on the region of the valve plate for the axial piston motor. It is shown that the overall efficiency of the axial piston motor fixed to the valve plate with micro-dimples (area ratio of 5%) can be improved by 2.8%–6.1%, compared to that without micro-dimples; the overall efficiency of axial piston motor fixed to the valve plate with micro-dimples (diameter of 0.1 mm) can be improved by 0.8%–4.9%, compared to that without micro-dimples.